Biggest information security threat

Password?. What is cyber security threat ?.

Cyber security threats are activities done with the intension of stealing and causing disruptions to data as well as affecting digital life in general Cyber-attacks has been growing rapidly over the years and everyone is a possible victim and its effect is negative because it affect positive network productivity. Any unauthorized activity done on an organizational network is considered a network attack . C yber-attacks have very many negative effects to an individual, business organization and state as a whole. Hence it becomes very important to adopt best practices when it comes to cyber security. These include password hygiene, installation of anti-virus software, extra caution to be taken against phishing attacks, outsourcing security services, and adoption of better threat detection tool..

Our biggest Information security threats.

1. Social engineering. This is one of the most dangerous techniques that is used by cyber criminal in hacking. This technique is widely used because it always relies on human error instead of technical vulnerabilities. It becomes much easier to trick humans than breaching of systems. Social engineering technique is a method that is key in obtain employees data and other personal information They mainly start with phishing and email impersonation ..

2. Third part exposure. This type of threat is used by cybercriminal whereby they hack less protected networks that belongs to third parties that have the previlage to access the highly protected networks..

3. Configuration mistakes. As more number of employees continue to make mistakes, exploitable misconfiguration opportunities also increases for hackers. 80% of external penetration test always end up encountering exploitable misconfigurations while through internal access exploitable misconfiguration end up at above 95%..

4. Poor cyber hygiene. Cyber hygiene involves regular habits and practices concerning technology such as avoiding unprotected Wi-Fi and implementing multi-factor authentications..

5. Cloud Vulnerabilities. Many tend to think that cloud is always safe and secure, but this not the case, cloud vulnerabilities have increased overtime. Cloud services are exposed to a wide range of vulnerabilities such as Denial of services attacks which prevents organizations from gaining access to their data. Common cases of cyber threats under cloud include improper data sharing, security misconfiguration, compromised accounts, and other vulnerability exploitations..

6. Mobile device vulnerabilities. These mobile devices vulnerabilities have been increase by the increase in remote working, hence many organization have adopted bring in your phone policies. Due to this most companies have experienced breaches due to employees downloading malicious mobile apps. Cyber criminal target mobile device management which companies use to control company devices, and since these mobile device managements are connected to the entire network hackers in turn use them to simultaneously attack every employee..

7. Internet of Things. Since most people have poor cyber hygiene, adoption of ‘internet of things’ connectivity increased vulnerabilities for hackers..

8. Ransom ware. Here hackers hold the organization’s system access for ransom. Organizations have suffered huge amount of revenue loss to ransom ware attacks. Ransom ware attacks will always evolve and nowadays hackers can subscribe to “Ransom ware-as-a-service” providers. This allows to them to deploy and ask for ransom using pre-developed ransom ware tools. Ransom ware attacks is among the top cyber threats that hackers use aginst targeted business organizations..

9 . Poor data management. Data handling mistakes that lead to breaches are costly just as high-tech cybersecurity attacks..

Effects of these security threats.

Data corruption, when there is unauthorized access, the data can be corrupted and when financial documents are accessed it can cause problem during audit thus each organization should have backup in case of such attacks Causes disruption to operation since after attack the organization maybe be forced to stop in order to make corrections Cyber-attacks can make an organization to lose its reputation which may be difficult or impossible recover Cyber-attacks is also responsible for causing failure of military equipment, electricity blackout and even national security data can be breached Financial loss, after an attack organizations may be forced to compensate costumers on the loss of their orders during sale to gain their trust back.

Protection Against security threats.

Creation of strong and unique passwords and employees to avoid sharing their logins with anyone . Use of secure networks whenever accessing system, network or data that belongs to the company. Unsecure public Wi-Fi and unprotected networks should be avoided. Phishing mails or malicious links should be avoided. Soft wares and applications including web browsers being used must be up to date because these updates always contain new security features. Employee must be vigilante and immediately report any suspicious activity to IT department. These suspicious activities include system’s strange behavior, phishing email and even strange unexpected pop ups on the screen.

References Alotaibi , M., Furnell , S., & Clarke, N. (2016, December). Information security policies: A review of challenges and influencing factors. In 2016 11th International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST) (pp. 352-358). IEEE . Keller, S., Powell, A., Horstmann , B., Predmore , C., & Crawford, M. (2005). Information security threats and practices in small businesses. Information systems management , 22 (2), 7 . Al Nafea , R., & Almaiah , M. A. (2021, July). Cyber security threats in cloud: Literature review. In 2021 International Conference on Information Technology (ICIT) (pp. 779-786). IEEE..